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Path 2

Daily News: Bloomy Liked McCain

February 26, 2009

By all accounts, Mayor Bloomberg’s ice-breaker sit-down yesterday with the city’s five Republican county leaders didn’t yield the deal he seeks to run on the party’s ballot line this fall. But it did produce a nugget of truth-telling that has long escaped us: In last year’s presidential contest, Adam Lisberg of the Daily News reports, Bloomberg was a McCain man.

When Bloomberg emerged alone from the meeting at the party’s East Side headquarters, he spoke in generalities to reporters waiting outside: “We just talked about national politics and how we all hope that President Obama will be a good President,” said the mayor.

As Lisberg writes: “That
surprised several of the GOPers, who said later that Bloomberg barely
mentioned Obama but said he had supported Sen. John McCain.”

Bloomy never endorsed a candidate last year. His aides insisted that the mayor “never came close to backing either” McCain or Obama because he wanted to keep channels open to whoever won the White House. But Bloomberg — who strongly backed George W. in 2004 — told staff that he preferred McCain, something he never had the courage to tell his constituents. Until yesterday that is, in a closed room with five Republicans.